Crutchley Planned Murder, Cellmates Say

April 15, 1986|By Cory Jo Lancaster of The Sentinel Staff

TITUSVILLE — Two former cellmates of the Malabar man accused of being a ''vampire rapist'' testified Monday he told them he planned to kill a 19-year-old woman after raping her and drinking her blood in November.

The two cellmates, Patrick Dontell and Gregory Raub, said John Brennan Crutchley told them ''the girl would have died'' if she had not climbed out of a bathroom window in his home and escaped with her wrists and ankles handcuffed.

Raub and Dontell made their statements Monday in depositions at the Brevard County Courthouse. Their testimony about what they will say during Crutchley's trial was given under oath.

Crutchley is charged with kidnapping, raping and robbing the California woman of her blood Nov. 21 and 22. He is scheduled to go on trial May 19.

Raub and Dontell referred several times to a Brevard County Sheriff's Department ''homicide investigation'' of Crutchley, although attorneys repeatedly warned them to speak only about the pending case. Prosecutors would not discuss the references.

Fairfax, Va., police, however, have named the 39-year-old as a suspect in a 1978 unsolved murder there.

Dontell was in the Brevard County Jail awaiting trial on a sexual battery charge. He was moved earlier this month to the Seminole County jail for his protection.

Raub was released two weeks ago from the county jail after serving time on drug charges. He was supposed to have remained jailed until June 1 but was released early.

Raub said Crutchley ''is convinced that no way are they going to pin anything on him'' and that Crutchley bragged about being ''the vampire rapist.''

''He said he has a lot more intelligence than the cops and he will make them pay for every day he stays in jail,'' Raub said.

In his statement to deputies in November, Crutchley admitted having sex with the woman and drinking her blood, but said she had consented to the acts. ''He said there is no way anybody will believe a second generation Charles Manson girl over an engineer with Harris'' Corp. of Melbourne, said Dontell, who claims the two talked for 300 hours in the Brevard County Jail last month. ''I thought it was a consentual thing until he told me the true story,'' Dontell said. ''He began fantasizing the whole thing when he arrived at his house.

''He fantasized that nobody had seen him come in with her. She was from out of town and a virgin. He got the rope out, choked her and dragged her in the house.

''He kept saying she was disrupting his fantasy because she wasn't putting up a struggle. She never resisted,'' Dontell said.

Crutchley's attorney, Joe Mitchell, claims the two are lying to get special consideration from the state attorney's office. Crutchley denies ever talking to them, he added.